Pun Salad

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I like John Krasinski as action hero Jack Ryan just fine. He's an able substitute for (hold your breath) Alec Baldwin, Harrison Ford, Ben Affleck, and Chris Pine. Once you get over Jim from "The Office" shooting people, he does a good job.

This is on Amazon Prime, and unlike Krasinski's previous outings in the role, it's a single, stand-alone movie. As things open, Jack has eschewed his spying roles, and has taken a role in the private sector. He's also lost his girlfriend, Cathy, for some reason. (Major departure from the books and early movies!) But (as opening scenes reveal) there's some violence happening in Dubai, as good guys try (and fatally fail) in their mission to extract … something.

To be honest, the plot was nearly incomprehensible to me, other than knowing who the good guys and bad guys were. It serves mainly to string together a lot of gunplay, car chases, explosions, and the like. Mainly because the bad guys seemed to have a supernatural ability to know what the good guys were up to. Fortunately, Jack has an equally uncanny ability to deduce what the bad guys are up to. But not always quickly enough to avoid good guy fatalities.

Wendell Pierce is back as Jack's once and future boss; Michael Kelly is here as Jack's wisecracking (and very deadly) sidekick. They are good too. Sienna Miller shows up as a chain-smoking MI6 operative, and she and Jack exchange banter.

I guess this movie is suffering at the box office (ScreenRant: "The Mandalorian And Grogu Box Office Suffers With Star Wars' Worst-Ever Week 2 Drop"). Some of the reviews have been mediocre. Well, let me tell you: my mileage varied. Pun Son and I attended a Saturday evening show, and I found my face hurting from smiling so much.

It probably helped that I watched the streaming series, and got accustomed to the Mandalorian's reluctant heroism, and even more reluctant surrogate parenthood of Baby Yoda.

And maybe also helping is the presence of Sigourney Weaver, whom I've kind of adored since watching her in Alien 47 years ago. (She looks great!)

Here, the movie opens up with a slam-bang action sequence, as Mando is on the trail of a leftover thug from the not-quite-defunct Empire. After much violence (it appears that Mando has taken lessons from John Wick) he returns to meet with Ward (Sigourney) for his next assignment. Which turns out to be even more dangerous. More explosions, betrayals, monsters (including Hutts!), escapes, scares, … It's a lot of fun.

I was in the mood for a big dumb violent movie, and this fit the bill. Even though the script is just a semi-redo of Predator. I liked the star, Alan Ritchson, for his portrayal of Reacher over on Amazon Prime; this one's on Netflix. And I stayed awake, something I haven't managed to do while trying to watch Season One of The Expanse.

Ritchson plays "81", his number at the Army's "Ranger Assessment and Selection Program", a brutal winnowing-out process to ensure that only the toughest make it into the Rangers. He's there thanks to a promise made to his (doomed) brother in an opening scene set in Afghanistan, just before a devastating Taliban attack that leaves everyone else dead or dying.

So 81's got some psychological problems, he's looking to prove something, and so he makes it to the very final test, and… that's when the War Machine shows up, a malicious killer robot dropped in from outer space, by coincidence landing only a hop skip and jump from the Ranger exercise.

Now, if you haven't seen Predator, go and watch it, it's a much better movie. But if you have seen Predator, you can probably guess at what happens: being hopelessly out-teched by the alien device, 81's team gets slaughtered in variously painful and gory ways. But (not really a spoiler) 81 survives for a final desperate showdown. And if you recall some otherwise superfluous dialog from the opening scene, you'll know how that develops.

And, oh yeah, just like Predator, there's a sequel setup.

And finally: is that Dennis Quaid? Yes it is, and he looks even older than his actual 72 years. And he doesn't smile once.

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Waay back in 1968, when I was a lad of 17, I read a laudatory review of No Way to Treat a Lady in Time magazine. And so I went to see it. In an actual movie theater! I remember enjoying it. Times were simpler back then. When I noticed that it was available free-to-me on my Roku (via PlutoTV, with a lot of ads), I bit.

Rod Steiger plays Christopher Gill, a rich actor/director in Manhattan's Theater District. Unfortunately, he has unresolved mommy issues, so he takes up a serial-killing hobby, preying on middle-aged women (well, usually women) living alone. He uses his talents in makeup, costumery, and accents to disguise himself in various identities.

The case gets assigned to Detective Morris ("Mo") Brummel (George Segal), who lives with his very stereotypical Jewish mother (Eileen Heckart). Mo becomes enamored with Kate (Lee Remick), a witness who happened to notice Gill's approach to the first victim.

Gill, publicity hound that he is, becomes obsessed with how he's being covered in the press, and starts phoning Mo. (This is in the days before caller ID.) A cat-and-mouse game ensues! Gill notices Mo's developing relationship with Kate, will she eventually be targeted as a victim?

Still a lot of fun to watch, 58 years later. You can read the Time review that impressed me back then right here.

So it's Hulk vs. Thor! Also, Storm!

(Respectively: Mark Ruffalo, Chris Hemsworth, Halle Berry.)

This movie was based on a Don Winslow novella, included in his collection of shorter works, Broken (which I liked). On the outer surface it's pretty clichéd: Davis, a very talented thief (Hemsworth), is looking to make One Final Score, but Lou, a diligent cop (Ruffalo), has picked up on his modus operandi: no harm done to his victims, targeting sites with easy access to California Highway 101. Complications ensue for everyone: Davis acquires a sorta-girlfriend who's unaware of his profession; he enlists the aid of an insurance broker (Berry) who's bitter about being passed over for promotion; he gets betrayed by his longtime mentor (whoa, Nick Nolte has seen better days) and tormented, as a result, by a violent psycho. Meanwhile, Lou is getting a lot of pushback from his corrupt cop superiors and cop co-workers.

The cinematography is very splashy. Very Michael Mann-ish. It has to be very splashy for me to notice. I'm surprised it didn't get an Oscar nomination for that, at least.

And it's kind of long: 2⅓ hours. Still, I stayed awake, which is unusual for me at home on the sofa.

An increasingly rare thing for me: going out to watch a movie in a theater. But Pun Son and I managed to head down to Newington (NH) to see this blockbuster. As I type, IMDB raters put it at position #78 on the top 250 movies of all time. Ahead of Toy Story?! I don't know about that, but I had a good time.

As in the book, Rylan Grace wakes up amnesiac, not even knowing his own name, let alone his situation. But he's very alone, save for two dessicated corpses he discovers early on. (One of them being Lily from those old AT&T commercials, but don't worry, Milana Vayntrub fans, she shows up in flashbacks.)

Grace gradually recovers his memory, and (spoilers ahead) also his purpose: against all odds, find out why a deadly menace is eating the Earth's sun, and come up with a fix that will save the world. Unexpected help arrives from Epsilon Eridani.

A good word for Ryan Gosling, who plays "everyman" Grace with grace.

I've had a very poor movie-watching record so far this year. Part of the problem: I don't report on movies if I fell asleep while watching them. And that happens a lot; I even nodded off in the movie theater during 28 Years Later: The Bone Temple.

But I can report that I stayed awake all the way through Song Sung Blue. And I enjoyed it quite a bit. It's the based-on-truth story of Mike and Claire Sardina, starting from their meet-cute while performing their tribute-band songs at the Wisconsin State Fair. They discover their true chemistry in the songs of Neil Diamond. And eventually build a fan following in the Milwaukee area. Until…

Well, no spoilers here. But I went into the movie not really knowing the details, and there's some bad stuff I didn't see coming. (And, sadly, neither does Claire.) But it wouldn't be a very interesting movie without some of that.

Hugh Jackman plays Mike, Kate Hudson plays Claire, and they are both great. (Ms. Hudson snagged a Best Actress Oscar nomination, well-deserved.) And, hey, that's Jim Belushi!

(For what it's worth: I am definitely going to see Project Hail Mary on the big screen. And I will try again to watch The Bone Temple when it shows up on Netflix.)

I was inspired to watch this via a short clip seen on some social media site. Cary Grant! Ingrid Bergman! What could go wrong there? I even watched it without reading the synopsis at Amazon. (And it's a good thing, too, because it contains a major spoiler.) IMDB claims it's a comedy, but it's one of those comedies that isn't actually funny. (And I'm easily amused!)

Ms Bergman plays Anna Kalman, famous actress. We know she's famous because wherever she goes out in public, she's hounded for her autograph. She is, unfortunately, bored with her career. And, although she's single, she's uninterested in the efforts of her sister to set her up with suitably eligible suitors.

Ah, but then Cary Grant shows up. Sparks fly! He's a rich American, in line for a prestigious job at NATO. Fate throws them together! Pretty soom they are canoodling. And (see the title) they are not that discreet about it. One big problem: Cary says he's married, albeit separated, and divorce is out of the question.

The movie is based on a stage play, and it shows. There's a lot of costumery involved for Ms. Bergman. It was made in 1958, and I suppose part of the comedic content for audiences of the day was based on the way the film clearly implies adulterous behavior without spelling it out.

This is (duh) a sequel to Nobody, which I watched and liked back in 2023. Bob Odenkirk stars again (spoiler for the first movie: he survives), and he's great. It is billed as a "dark comedy", where the darkness is provided with copious violence, bad language, and threats against the innocent. So, if you're OK with that…

The events of the previous movie have given Hutch (Bob) a promotion of sorts: he's now a professional assassin, working to pay off multi-millions in debt, thanks to his rash (but understandable) decision to burn up a large pile of mob cash. (It made sense at the time. You really should watch that first movie before this one.)

But it's a tiresome life, and Hutch has been neglecting his family. He demands a break for a family vacation, and chooses "Plummerville", a cheesy, decrepit town he remembers from his youth. It's got rides, a water park, an arcade, duck boats, … and (oh yeah) loads of corruption and organized crime; he wasn't aware of that last bit. But Hutch is a Jack Reacher-style character; trouble and (eventually apocalyptic) violence seem to find him wherever he goes.

I had to look over to IMDB to find the name of the actress playing the primary villain here. And said, "Oh. Wow."

Pun Son wanted to see Nuremburg! (He's kind of into WWII stuff.) So we trundled down to the Regal Cinemaplex in Newington Sunday night for the 8:15 showing, and … we were the only ones in the theater. The parking log was crowded though, thanks to the new Wicked movie.

Cynical observation: When it comes to actual wickedness, I guess there's not so much interest in movies about that.

It is, pretty clearly, Oscar-bait. I'm not sure how the "Best Actor" nomination will play out. Will both Russell Crowe (who plays Hermann Göring) and Rami Malek (who plays his shrink, Douglas Kelley) get nods? Will they then split the vote, allowing some mere mortal to take home the statuette? I'd say Michael Shannon (playing prosecutor Robert H. Jackson) is a lock for Best Supporting Actor, even though he goes through the movie with a single semi-scowl expression.

Also good: John Slattery as Colonel Burton C. Andrus, commandant of the Nuremburg prison and Leo Woodall, an occasional translator between Kelley and Göring, who's hiding a secret past.

It's very long, just a couple minutes short of 2.5 hours. And, if you want to know why I'm concentrating on the actors, most of that time seems to be those actors talking to each other. I may have nodded off for a bit in the middle.

The movie emphasizes how ordinary Germans (like Göring) got enraptured by the charismatic Hitler. At the end, spoiler alert, Kelley is shown as a depressed drunk, given to loudly, but futilely, warning fellow Americans that it would be a mistake to think It Can't Happen Here. Are we supposed to draw parallels between the Adolph and the Donald? I'd guess that wasn't far from the filmmakers' minds.